Category: Alaska News

METLAKATLA, ALASKA — Across Alaska’s coastline, from the Indigenous communities of Bristol Bay to the Tlingit and Haida villages of the panhandle, rural harbors that once bustled with commercial fishing boats now sit unused and empty.

Abandoned boats covered with mold and algae line the shores of one Southeast town; others have seen their fleets sold off and relocated.

In the Indigenous village of Metlakatla, though, it’s a different story.

Fishing vessels pack the downtown harbor on Annette Island, which sits just off the coast at Alaska’s southernmost tip. Huge seiners, with onboard cranes to reel in fish-laden nets, loom over the docks, with many more slips filled in by smaller gillnetters. Fathers and grandfathers still fish with sons and grandsons.

Experts and industry players disagree about the exact reasons for the decline of commercial fishing in the rest of rural, coastal Alaska — with some blaming state policies and others pointing to global market trends.

In Metlakatla, local leaders say their success in sustaining their fishing culture stems from the community’s unusual history.

In the 1970s, the village stayed out of a land claims settlement between Alaska Natives and the federal government — a deal that could have brought cash in exchange for ceding Metlakatla’s reservation and residents’ collective right to pull fish from the waters off their shores. All the other Native reservations in the state were terminated.

As a result, Metlakatla is the only Native community in Alaska that manages its own commercial fishing harvest. The right to earn a living from the ocean waters surrounding the island is tied to tribal membership and can’t be sold off to outsiders — as happened in other rural and Native communities across the state.

Elsewhere, Native residents of coastal villages and cities might have to pony up $100,000 or more for a permit to access state-managed commercial fisheries just offshore. Meanwhile, any Metlakatla tribal member with a boat and $25 can buy a permit and cast their net in the Indigenous-managed fishery that extends 3,000 feet around Annette Island.

“It’s 100% of the reason why we’re not down to one boat,” said Albert Smith, Metlakatla’s mayor.

The island fishery sustains the largest tribally managed salmon harvest in the United States. The 1,600-person community has dozens of active commercial fishing vessels, which harvested more than 1.3 million salmon in 2024, according to the most recent tribal data available.

The community stands today as a kind of experiment. Its fishery represents an alternate reality that could have unfolded in rural Alaska if more communities had the same opportunities to access nearby waters — or had state policymakers not chosen to privatize commercial harvest rights in the rest of Alaska’s big salmon fisheries, as they did in the 1970s.

Metlakatla’s narrative is a “direct refutation” of the argument that coastal Alaska Native villages are to blame for the loss of their fishing industries, said Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, who once represented Metlakatla in the state House and several years ago pushed an unsuccessful bill to boost access to rural commercial fishing careers.

In Metlakatla, “every slip in the harbor is full — high schoolers are deckhanding for their uncle, their dad, their best friend’s dad,” Kreiss-Tomkins said. “I think it’s a fascinating case study.”

Local leaders say they’ve still had to fight to sustain Metlakatla’s fleet and its tribal fishery.

The community is now in the midst of a six-year legal effort to expand the waters available to tribal members, which leaders say could help solidify the future of Metlakatla’s fishing industry. But its federal lawsuit faces opposition from Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration, competing fishermen and even neighboring Indigenous people.

‘We’re the salmon people’

The Metlakatlans left northern British Columbia in the late-19th century amid conflicts over land ownership.

Residents secured an invitation to America from President Grover Cleveland and members of Congress at the behest of William Duncan, a charismatic Anglican minister. Duncan had worked with the region’s Indigenous Tsimshian people to establish the original Metlakatla in British Columbia, which he envisioned as a model Christian community.

After a mass migration in canoes and other vessels, the new Metlakatla was built 70 miles away on Annette Island, just across the international border in Alaska, where residents eventually built an enormous church.

A cannery served as a market for residents’ ancestral fishing tradition, which the tribe has described as a “bedrock of the Coast Tsimshian culture and way of life.” A presidential proclamation from Woodrow Wilson in 1916 subsequently set aside the 3,000-foot strip around the island exclusively for use by the village’s fishermen.

For decades afterward, Metlakatla’s commercial fleet harvested both inside and outside the exclusive zone.

Skippers of today, who are mostly men, learned to fish from their fathers, who learned from their fathers and grandfathers before them.

Fishing is “one of the few things that remain unbroken from our forever history,” said David R. Boxley, a Metlakatla artist who served on the village’s tribal council until recently.

“That’s our culture, even though it’s changed in how we do it,” he said. “It’s as old as our people. We’re the salmon people.”

Tribal fishery ‘saved our butts’

In 1971, Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, which came with a painful tradeoff.

Newly formed, Indigenous-owned corporations would receive a total of $1 billion and some 45 million acres — roughly 10% of the state. In exchange for that money and property, Alaska’s Indigenous people would give up claims to larger swaths of traditional lands, and those that had reservations would surrender them.

Most Alaska Native groups didn’t have reservations at the time, so they had little choice but to participate in the settlement.

Metlakatla had one of only 23 reservations in Alaska and exclusive fishing rights to boot, so it had more to lose. It may have also had less to gain, because the community’s emigration from Canada made its Alaska land claims less certain.

Some in Metlakatla wanted to pursue the payout anyway, according to Boxley.

But elders whose parents and grandparents had been through the exodus from the original village site in British Columbia saw their sovereignty as priceless, he explained.

“We’d already lost a Metlakatla,” Boxley said. “We had to build two communities — one was basically taken from us. Why would we do that again?”

The other 22 reservations in Alaska were dissolved as a result of the settlement. Today, only Metlakatla’s remains.

A few years after the other tribes settled, in an effort to prevent overfishing and make the industry more profitable, the state of Alaska established its “limited entry” program. The system capped the number of skippers in each commercial fishery and transformed fishing from a public right to a private privilege, one available only to those who could afford or inherit a permit. And since the supply of permits was limited, they became valuable commodities.

Commercial fishing permits can now be bought and sold on the open market, in some cases fetching six-figure prices. And over the years, residents of many rural and Indigenous communities have sold their permits to people from Alaska’s larger cities and towns, and from other states.

Rural fishermen also moved out of villages and took their permits with them. And those forces conspired to hollow out rural, coastal communities economically — even as Alaska lawmakers have done little to stem the tide.

In Metlakatla, though, tribal members don’t need those expensive permits to pursue a commercial fishing career. While many fishermen in the village have purchased them anyway — allowing harvests both inside and outside the 3,000-foot zone — other Metlakatlans fish only inside that exclusive strip.

Even top fishermen who roam well beyond Annette Island say that the tribal fishery has helped sustain them in lean years — particularly by providing lucrative catches of sea cucumbers and clams, which are harvested in underwater diving gear and fetch high prices in Asia.

“We’ve had terrible seasons seining,” said longtime Metlakatla fisherman Daniel Marsden, 48, referring to the technique of catching salmon with a huge, circular net. “And we go diving, and that saved our butts.”

A lawsuit to expand fishing rights

While commercial fishing remains vibrant in Metlakatla, the community’s fish processing plant is another story.

The business was long an economic mainstay for the village, providing local jobs and revenue for the tribal government.

But beginning in the 1990s, falling seafood prices challenged its profitability, and since 2018, it’s processed only small amounts of fish.

Today, the cavernous waterfront processing buildings, with peeling white paint, operate at a fraction of their capacity.

Most fishermen who live in Metlakatla and dock their boats in the village harbor sell the salmon they harvest not to the tribally owned plant, but to processing businesses in Ketchikan, 15 miles north. The tribal plant currently lacks the equipment it needs to handle the large volumes of salmon netted by Metlakatla’s fleet, Smith explained.

If more of Metlakatla’s up-and-coming fishermen could harvest farther from the island without having to buy expensive state permits, he added, their catch could be large enough to justify reinvesting in the tribally owned plant.

The 3,000-foot strip around Annette Island, local leaders argue, is no longer the community’s breadbasket. It’s become a “cage” holding back the village’s fleet, according to one longtime fisherman, Edward Gunyah.

To break out of that cage, Metlakatla filed a lawsuit.

Nearly six years ago, the tribe entered a complaint in federal court, asserting that the state of Alaska’s limited entry permit program was illegally barring Metlakatlans from harvesting in areas they were entitled to fish.

The tribe argues that an 1891 federal law granted it the right to enough fish to make the village self-sustaining — which should allow members to harvest anywhere within roughly a day’s travel from the reservation. The suit doesn’t seek to expel other skippers from the disputed waters, only to allow Metlakatla residents to fish there without buying pricey state permits.

“Congress intended to give the community an opportunity to prosper by accessing the fisheries in the waters surrounding the Annette Islands,” the tribe said in its amended complaint.

State and tribal opposition

Metlakatla’s attorneys filed the 2020 lawsuit in federal court on Aug. 7 — a yearly community holiday commemorating the 1887 arrival of the village’s advance party at Annette Island.

Since then, Metlakatla has won preliminary victories as the case has wound through rounds of lower court decisions and appeals.

But it has also faced strong opposition — from the state government, the fishing industry and other tribes.

“We’re going to see this through to the end,” Doug Vincent-Lang, Alaska’s fish and game commissioner, told a group of Ketchikan fishermen in 2024, according to a recording obtained by Northern Journal and APM Reports.

A win by Metlakatla, he said, would invite efforts from other tribes “that don’t have a treaty, or want to expand what they consider their rights to fish outside the state regulatory environment.”

“We’re not against Metlakatla,” Vincent-Lang said in an interview. “We support their right to fish in their tribal waters. It’s just when you start fishing outside of those waters, there’s treaty implications and everything else that comes into play. How do you account for that? It’s just all kinds of questions that come up.”

A trade group representing Southeast Alaska’s fleet of seine boats supports the state’s position.

Some of the group’s members are concerned about the potential for the lawsuit to expand Metlakatlans’ fishing rights in a way that increases competition, said Tom Meiners, who leads the group’s board.

“We don’t see the need for the island fishery to be expanded,” Meiners said, noting how numerous Metlakatla fishermen already have state permits and wouldn’t directly benefit if the tribe wins.

Meanwhile, nearly five years into the litigation, a group of other Southeast Alaska tribal governments, the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida, filed their own motion to dismiss Metlakatla’s case.

The request, ultimately rejected by the judge, said Metlakatla’s Tsimshian residents were descended from Canadians and were infringing on traditional Tlingit and Haida harvest rights and tribal property.

The fight against the lawsuit, particularly by the state and the other tribes, has deeply frustrated Metlakatla’s leaders and allies, who say the village has long contended with hostility to its unique fishing rights. They also say that both written and oral tradition reflect the longtime presence of Tsimshian people on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border before it was established, with traditional names for Southeast Alaska sites derived from Tsimshian names.

“We should be working together” against factory fishing boats that accidentally harvest salmon, and against out-of-state commercial permit holders, said Boxley, the former Metlakatla tribal council member. He added: “That’s who’s devastating the fishery. Not us.”

‘Control our own future’

After five years of the lawsuit ping-ponging between lower and appeals courts, a decision on the expansion of Metlakatla’s tribal fishing rights could come as soon as this year.

Smith, the mayor, said a victory could help rev the village’s processing plant back to life.

“The vision is to see it going full-fledged again,” he said.

While awaiting a decision, the tribe leased a corner of the plant to a start-up, Circle Seafoods, that is testing a new concept for fish processing. Rather than trying to fillet and pack the whole summer salmon harvest in a single frenetic push of a few weeks, Circle freezes fish whole, then thaws and cuts them in batches throughout the rest of the year.

The tribe is interested in replicating the idea because it could sustain a year-round workforce in the village, Smith said. Meanwhile, Annette Island Packing Co., which is owned by the tribe, recently launched a line of freeze-dried salmon pet treats. They’re branded as Ksa Hoon — “just fish” in Sm’algyax, the Tsimshian language.

Operating at full capacity, the plant could churn out profits that the tribe could use to diversify — investing and expanding into other businesses such as ecotourism, Boxley said. He described the lawsuit as aligning with Metlakatlans’ decision a century ago to move from Canada to Alaska, where tribal members would have more autonomy.

“We did all this to be in control of our own future,” Boxley said. “That’s why we came here.”

This story was produced as part of the Pulitzer Center’s StoryReach U.S. Fellowship. It was reported and edited by Northern Journal and APM Reports.

Nathaniel Herz welcomes tips at natherz@gmail.com or (907) 793-0312. This article was originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter from Herz. Subscribe at this link.

The post ‘The salmon people’: How Alaska’s only Native reservation saved its fishing culture appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

The Alaska State Legislature is considering the reappointment of a governor’s nominee for the Alaska Board of Parole for another five year term. The decision comes amid questions about the board’s significant decline in grant rates to among the lowest in the nation. 

At a Tuesday confirmation hearing, members of the House State Affairs Committee put questions to Steve Meyer, who has served on the board since 2016, before advancing his reappointment confirmation to the full Legislature. 

The five-member parole board is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature, and its members review eligibility for parole and set conditions for release from Alaska prisons.

Meyer worked in the Alaska Department of Corrections beginning in 1991, including as a correctional officer, transportation officer and probation and parole officer until his retirement in 2014, according to his application to the board. In 2016, he was appointed to the parole board seat representing Southcentral Alaska including Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula. Since serving on the board, he has participated in thousands of discretionary parole and final parole revocation hearings, he said in an updated resume. 

The parole board has been the focus of concern from some lawmakers, advocates and members of the public in recent years as its parole approval rates have declined significantly. 

Last year, the board denied 45% of applicants. In 2024, it denied 59% of applicants, and 58% the year before. In an analysis by the Prison Policy Initiative, a non-profit research group, found that from 2019 to 2022, Alaska reduced the number of people released through discretionary parole by 79% — the largest percent change nationwide. 

Rep. Andi Story, D-Juneau, asked Meyer why the board is granting fewer people parole. “I’m just trying to get a feel for what is typical,” she said. “And the reasons for why the granting of parole has gone down.”

“There’s certainly some validity in that, that perception,” Meyers said by phone. Higher numbers of people were granted parole before the repeal of Senate Bill 91 enacted in 2020, he said, when lawmakers increased prison sentences for most felonies and misdemeanors, and increased penalties for violating conditions of release. 

“So there were less grants,” Meyer said. “But then there was quite a period of time during COVID, when a lot of the folks we were seeing hadn’t been able to do the programming that we usually look at for discretionary parole. And so that was part of the numbers of grants declining.”

Meyer said more recently, he sees grant rates increasing. “I think with discretionary (parole), there’s a bit of an ebb and flow to it. It’s largely dependent on a candidate, and what we see when we interview them for discretionary parole. So it’s very individualized,” he said.

Last year, of those granted parole, 11% were under discretionary parole, and 87% were under mandatory parole, meaning they had served their sentence. 

Meyer explained the board receives a packet of information on each candidate with information like their criminal history, institutional history while incarcerated, and programs they’ve attended while incarcerated. Then they interview the candidate at their parole hearing. 

“The packets, there’s a lot of information, but it’s kind of like a map,” he said. “You look at it, but you don’t really know what the terrain is until you actually physically get to see it. And it’s kind of that way with when we interview people, we get a chance to get to get a feel for the person, get to know them a little bit, and which makes it a pretty important part of the process.”

He said that after the parole hearing, board deliberations are done in private and decisions are made by a majority vote. 

Story asked if state correctional facilities had restored rehabilitative programming since the COVID-19 pandemic, to help people become more eligible for parole. 

Meyer said they have been somewhat restored, but the Alaska Department of Corrections does not have the resources to offer programs to everyone that needs them. “So not everybody’s able to access the things that that would be nice for them to access,” he said.

He said the programs in high demand are substance abuse treatment and sex offender treatment. “Which has always been a little bit lacking. It’s a very lengthy, lengthy, complex process, the sex offender treatment,” he said. “But that too, we’ve seen an increase in that.”

Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, I-Sitka, asked Meyer about low rates of parole for those who are old or terminally ill, who may pose very little risk to the public and be eligible for geriatric or medical parole.

The Board of Parole has not granted anyone geriatric or medical parole in the last five years, according to state data.

Meyer acknowledged the concerns at the rising costs of care for the aging prison population as “a huge issue.”

He said the board follows criteria in state statute. “It’s not my position to say what should be done,” he said. “We tend to not make too many demands of the system, if you will. But I think there’s certainly room for maybe some modification to those requirements that would allow more relief to those folks, because it certainly is an issue.”

Some legislators and advocates have expressed concern that DOC is keeping people incarcerated who may be eligible for parole — also who may have expensive medical needs — contributing to an all-time high corrections budget proposed this year at $523 million. 

Himschoot asked Meyer what motivates him to serve on the board of parole.

Meyer said he spent most of his life working in corrections, and felt success as a parole and probation officer. “There’s a lot of reward to it. And you know, the best days are when you are able to grant everybody parole, or whenever you’re able to release everybody. And those are what makes doing the job worth it, I guess,” he said.

“And down the road, you know, having done this for a while now, seeing people that we put out to discretionary parole or other other things, being able to see them in community, being a part of the community, there’s a reward,” he said. “It’s just something that I’ve always felt like I had a good purpose.”

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This story was produced as part of the Pulitzer Center’s StoryReach U.S. Fellowship. It’s the third in a series about access to commercial fisheries in rural Alaska; read Part Oneand Part Two.

METLAKATLA, ALASKA — Across Alaska’s coastline, from the Indigenous communities of Bristol Bay to the Tlingit and Haida villages of the panhandle, rural harbors that once bustled with commercial fishing boats now sit unused and empty.

Abandoned boats covered with mold and algae line the shores of one Southeast town; others have seen their fleets sold off and relocated.

In the Indigenous village of Metlakatla, though, it’s a different story.

Fishing vessels pack the downtown harbor on Annette Island, which sits just off the coast at Alaska’s southernmost tip. Huge seiners, with onboard cranes to reel in fish-laden nets, loom over the docks, with many more slips filled in by smaller gillnetters. Fathers and grandfathers still fish with sons and grandsons.

Experts and industry players disagree about the exact reasons for the decline of commercial fishing in the rest of rural, coastal Alaska — with some blaming state policies and others pointing to global market trends.

In Metlakatla, local leaders say their success in sustaining their fishing culture stems from the community’s unusual history.

In the 1970s, the village stayed out of a land claims settlement between Alaska Natives and the federal government — a deal that could have brought cash in exchange for ceding Metlakatla’s reservation and residents’ collective right to pull fish from the waters off their shores. All the other Native reservations in the state were terminated.

As a result, Metlakatla is the only Native community in Alaska that manages its own commercial fishing harvest. The right to earn a living from the ocean waters surrounding the island is tied to tribal membership and can’t be sold off to outsiders — as happened in other rural and Native communities across the state.

Elsewhere, Native residents of coastal villages and cities might have to pony up $100,000 or more for a permit to access state-managed commercial fisheries just offshore. Meanwhile, any Metlakatla tribal member with a boat and $25 can buy a permit and cast their net in the Indigenous-managed fishery that extends 3,000 feet around Annette Island.

“It’s 100% of the reason why we’re not down to one boat,” said Albert Smith, Metlakatla’s mayor.

The island fishery sustains the largest tribally managed salmon harvest in the United States. The 1,600-person community has dozens of active commercial fishing vessels, which harvested more than 1.3 million salmon in 2024, according to the most recent tribal data available.

The community stands today as a kind of experiment. Its fishery represents an alternate reality that could have unfolded in rural Alaska if more communities had the same opportunities to access nearby waters — or had state policymakers not chosen to privatize commercial harvest rights in the rest of Alaska’s big salmon fisheries, as they did in the 1970s.

Metlakatla’s narrative is a “direct refutation” of the argument that coastal Alaska Native villages are to blame for the loss of their fishing industries, said Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, who once represented Metlakatla in the state House and several years ago pushed an unsuccessful bill to boost access to rural commercial fishing careers.

In Metlakatla, “every slip in the harbor is full — high schoolers are deckhanding for their uncle, their dad, their best friend’s dad,” Kreiss-Tomkins said. “I think it’s a fascinating case study.”

Local leaders say they’ve still had to fight to sustain Metlakatla’s fleet and its tribal fishery.

The community is now in the midst of a six-year legal effort to expand the waters available to tribal members, which leaders say could help solidify the future of Metlakatla’s fishing industry. But its federal lawsuit faces opposition from Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration, competing fishermen and even neighboring Indigenous people.

‘We’re the salmon people’

The Metlakatlans left northern British Columbia in the late-19th century amid conflicts over land ownership.

Residents secured an invitation to America from President Grover Cleveland and members of Congress at the behest of William Duncan, a charismatic Anglican minister. Duncan had worked with the region’s Indigenous Tsimshian people to establish the original Metlakatla in British Columbia, which he envisioned as a model Christian community.

After a mass migration in canoes and other vessels, the new Metlakatla was built 70 miles away on Annette Island, just across the international border in Alaska, where residents eventually built an enormous church.

A cannery served as a market for residents’ ancestral fishing tradition, which the tribe has described as a “bedrock of the Coast Tsimshian culture and way of life.” A presidential proclamation from Woodrow Wilson in 1916 subsequently set aside the 3,000-foot strip around the island exclusively for use by the village’s fishermen.

For decades afterward, Metlakatla’s commercial fleet harvested both inside and outside the exclusive zone.

Skippers of today, who are mostly men, learned to fish from their fathers, who learned from their fathers and grandfathers before them.

Fishing is “one of the few things that remain unbroken from our forever history,” said David R. Boxley, a Metlakatla artist who served on the village’s tribal council until recently.

“That’s our culture, even though it’s changed in how we do it,” he said. “It’s as old as our people. We’re the salmon people.”

Tribal fishery ‘saved our butts’

In 1971, Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, which came with a painful tradeoff.

Newly formed, Indigenous-owned corporations would receive a total of $1 billion and some 45 million acres — roughly 10% of the state. In exchange for that money and property, Alaska’s Indigenous people would give up claims to larger swaths of traditional lands, and those that had reservations would surrender them.

Most Alaska Native groups didn’t have reservations at the time, so they had little choice but to participate in the settlement.

Metlakatla had one of only 23 reservations in Alaska and exclusive fishing rights to boot, so it had more to lose. It may have also had less to gain, because the community’s emigration from Canada made its Alaska land claims less certain.

Some in Metlakatla wanted to pursue the payout anyway, according to Boxley.

But elders whose parents and grandparents had been through the exodus from the original village site in British Columbia saw their sovereignty as priceless, he explained.

“We’d already lost a Metlakatla,” Boxley said. “We had to build two communities — one was basically taken from us. Why would we do that again?”

The other 22 reservations in Alaska were dissolved as a result of the settlement. Today, only Metlakatla’s remains.

A few years after the other tribes settled, in an effort to prevent overfishing and make the industry more profitable, the state of Alaska established its “limited entry” program. The system capped the number of skippers in each commercial fishery and transformed fishing from a public right to a private privilege, one available only to those who could afford or inherit a permit. And since the supply of permits was limited, they became valuable commodities.

Commercial fishing permits can now be bought and sold on the open market, in some cases fetching six-figure prices. And over the years, residents of many rural and Indigenous communities have sold their permits to people from Alaska’s larger cities and towns, and from other states.

Rural fishermen also moved out of villages and took their permits with them. And those forces conspired to hollow out rural, coastal communities economically — even as Alaska lawmakers have done little to stem the tide.

In Metlakatla, though, tribal members don’t need those expensive permits to pursue a commercial fishing career. While many fishermen in the village have purchased them anyway — allowing harvests both inside and outside the 3,000-foot zone — other Metlakatlans fish only inside that exclusive strip.

Even top fishermen who roam well beyond Annette Island say that the tribal fishery has helped sustain them in lean years — particularly by providing lucrative catches of sea cucumbers and clams, which are harvested in underwater diving gear and fetch high prices in Asia.

“We’ve had terrible seasons seining,” said longtime Metlakatla fisherman Daniel Marsden, 48, referring to the technique of catching salmon with a huge, circular net. “And we go diving, and that saved our butts.”

A lawsuit to expand fishing rights

While commercial fishing remains vibrant in Metlakatla, the community’s fish processing plant is another story.

The business was long an economic mainstay for the village, providing local jobs and revenue for the tribal government.

But beginning in the 1990s, falling seafood prices challenged its profitability, and since 2018, it’s processed only small amounts of fish.

Today, the cavernous waterfront processing buildings, with peeling white paint, operate at a fraction of their capacity.

Most fishermen who live in Metlakatla and dock their boats in the village harbor sell the salmon they harvest not to the tribally owned plant, but to processing businesses in Ketchikan, 15 miles north. The tribal plant currently lacks the equipment it needs to handle the large volumes of salmon netted by Metlakatla’s fleet, Smith explained.

If more of Metlakatla’s up-and-coming fishermen could harvest farther from the island without having to buy expensive state permits, he added, their catch could be large enough to justify reinvesting in the tribally owned plant.

The 3,000-foot strip around Annette Island, local leaders argue, is no longer the community’s breadbasket. It’s become a “cage” holding back the village’s fleet, according to one longtime fisherman, Edward Gunyah.

To break out of that cage, Metlakatla filed a lawsuit.

Nearly six years ago, the tribe entered a complaint in federal court, asserting that the state of Alaska’s limited entry permit program was illegally barring Metlakatlans from harvesting in areas they were entitled to fish.

The tribe argues that an 1891 federal law granted it the right to enough fish to make the village self-sustaining — which should allow members to harvest anywhere within roughly a day’s travel from the reservation. The suit doesn’t seek to expel other skippers from the disputed waters, only to allow Metlakatla residents to fish there without buying pricey state permits.

“Congress intended to give the community an opportunity to prosper by accessing the fisheries in the waters surrounding the Annette Islands,” the tribe said in its amended complaint.

State and tribal opposition

Metlakatla’s attorneys filed the 2020 lawsuit in federal court on Aug. 7 — a yearly community holiday commemorating the 1887 arrival of the village’s advance party at Annette Island.

Since then, Metlakatla has won preliminary victories as the case has wound through rounds of lower court decisions and appeals.

But it has also faced strong opposition — from the state government, the fishing industry and other tribes.

“We’re going to see this through to the end,” Doug Vincent-Lang, Alaska’s fish and game commissioner, told a group of Ketchikan fishermen in 2024, according to a recording obtained by Northern Journal and APM Reports.

A win by Metlakatla, he said, would invite efforts from other tribes “that don’t have a treaty, or want to expand what they consider their rights to fish outside the state regulatory environment.”

“We’re not against Metlakatla,” Vincent-Lang said in an interview. “We support their right to fish in their tribal waters. It’s just when you start fishing outside of those waters, there’s treaty implications and everything else that comes into play. How do you account for that? It’s just all kinds of questions that come up.”

A trade group representing Southeast Alaska’s fleet of seine boats supports the state’s position.

Some of the group’s members are concerned about the potential for the lawsuit to expand Metlakatlans’ fishing rights in a way that increases competition, said Tom Meiners, who leads the group’s board.

“We don’t see the need for the island fishery to be expanded,” Meiners said, noting how numerous Metlakatla fishermen already have state permits and wouldn’t directly benefit if the tribe wins.

Meanwhile, nearly five years into the litigation, a group of other Southeast Alaska tribal governments, the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida, filed their own motion to dismiss Metlakatla’s case.

The request, ultimately rejected by the judge, said Metlakatla’s Tsimshian residents were descended from Canadians and were infringing on traditional Tlingit and Haida harvest rights and tribal property.

The fight against the lawsuit, particularly by the state and the other tribes, has deeply frustrated Metlakatla’s leaders and allies, who say the village has long contended with hostility to its unique fishing rights. They also say that both written and oral tradition reflect the longtime presence of Tsimshian people on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border before it was established, with traditional names for Southeast Alaska sites derived from Tsimshian names.

“We should be working together” against factory fishing boats that accidentally harvest salmon, and against out-of-state commercial permit holders, said Boxley, the former Metlakatla tribal council member. He added: “That’s who’s devastating the fishery. Not us.”

‘Control our own future’

After five years of the lawsuit ping-ponging between lower and appeals courts, a decision on the expansion of Metlakatla’s tribal fishing rights could come as soon as this year.

Smith, the mayor, said a victory could help rev the village’s processing plant back to life.

“The vision is to see it going full-fledged again,” he said.

While awaiting a decision, the tribe leased a corner of the plant to a start-up, Circle Seafoods, that is testing a new concept for fish processing. Rather than trying to fillet and pack the whole summer salmon harvest in a single frenetic push of a few weeks, Circle freezes fish whole, then thaws and cuts them in batches throughout the rest of the year.

The tribe is interested in replicating the idea because it could sustain a year-round workforce in the village, Smith said. Meanwhile, Annette Island Packing Co., which is owned by the tribe, recently launched a line of freeze-dried salmon pet treats. They’re branded as Ksa Hoon — “just fish” in Sm’algyax, the Tsimshian language.

Operating at full capacity, the plant could churn out profits that the tribe could use to diversify — investing and expanding into other businesses such as ecotourism, Boxley said. He described the lawsuit as aligning with Metlakatlans’ decision a century ago to move from Canada to Alaska, where tribal members would have more autonomy.

“We did all this to be in control of our own future,” Boxley said. “That’s why we came here.”

This story was produced as part of the Pulitzer Center’s StoryReach U.S. Fellowship. It was reported and edited by Northern Journal and APM Reports.

Nathaniel Herz welcomes tips at natherz@gmail.com or (907) 793-0312. This article was originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter from Herz. Subscribe at this link.

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An Anchorage man is set to plead guilty for making violent threats against U.S. Supreme Court justices and their families.

Panos Anastasiou, 77, was charged with 22 crimes in the U.S. District Court of Alaska in 2024. He was accused of sending 465 messages to the Supreme Court starting in March of 2023.

Federal prosecutors said the messages contained threats to kill six justices, alongside racist and homophobic rhetoric.

Then-U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland alleged that Anastasiou “made repeated, heinous threats to murder and torture Supreme Court Justices and their families to retaliate against them for decisions he disagreed with.”

According to court documents filed this week, Anastasiou is set to change his plea from not guilty to guilty in accordance with a plea agreement. The filing does not describe which charges he is set to plead guilty to.

Anastasiou’s federal public defender and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Alaska did not immediately respond to a request for a copy of his written guilty plea agreement. 

Federal court filings did not identify the justices Anastasiou allegedly threatened. 

State records show Anastasiou is a registered nonpartisan voter. Since 2016, he donated around $800 to ActBlue, a fundraising service that benefits Democratic Party candidates, according to federal campaign records. 

A charge of making threats against a federal judge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. 

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With baskets in hand, Haines youth filled the high school Sunday afternoon on the hunt for Easter eggs. 

More than 160 children spread out throughout the school, filling their baskets and bags. 

Organizer Krystal Lloyd said 14,000 eggs were in the building, a large number compared with the previous year’s 11,000 eggs and the 2024 count of 8,000 eggs. Most eggs had candy; however, 153 had prize slips within. The Salvation Army donated additional prizes “to make sure that we didn’t run out,” Lloyd said.

Lillee Grant, 9, collected more than 50 eggs and found a coveted prize slip. She used it to pick out a large, green Tyrannosaurus Rex. 

“I’m getting this (dinosaur stuffy) ’cause it’s giant,” Grant said.

To keep from getting trampled in all of the excitement, the younger kids, like 2-year-old Olen Leazier and 21-month-old Stella Swinton, had a dedicated section in a different part of the school, where children could leisurely pick up eggs and fill bags their size.

Lloyd said 19 adults and two children helped her fill the plastic eggs with candy. In order to fill 14,000 eggs, Lloyd estimated about 60 people made donations. It took about 10 hours to fill 14,000 eggs with “a lot of donated stuffers.” 

The eggs are reused each year with 100 to 200 broken ones. Lloyd has been organizing the local Easter egg hunt for the past five years. The first hunt had about 30 kids and has since grown exponentially.

“Unless we get a nice donation, like we did this year, for next year, it’ll be really hard to meet the 14,000,” Lloyd said. 

This year, she said Jody Miller purchased the entire Amazon cart of goods for the event, becoming one of the biggest donors along with Howsers IGA, Oleruds and the Salvation Army.

The post Record-breaking Easter egg hunt at the Haines school  appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Krystal Lloyd helped to organize the Haines community Easter egg hunt and hot dog social this year. She gathered volunteers to fill the plastic eggs for the 14,00-egg event at the school on Easter. On Friday and Saturday Ron Weibel, Sue Waterhouse, Joshua Lloyd, Serena Woods, Judy Weibel, Neil Einsbruch, Joan Degen, Megan Highfield-Stewart, Savannah Tinnes, Phyllis Sage, Gary “Bubba” Hinkle, Sophia Armstrong, Chloe Lloyd, Allie Lloyd, Christina Lloyd, Lynndsey Stearns, Kristy Hinkle, Lucille Lloyd and Gloria Kosinski all helped fill the eggs. According to Einsbruch and Waterhouse, the best items stuffed into plastic eggs included the rubber-band punching balloon and slapper wrist bands. The Twix candy bars and stickers were also noteworthy. 

Three members of Haines Drama, Debate and Forensics team served  salmon and halibut at the Mosquito Lake School on Wednesday. Chisel Triezenberg, Walther Jim, and Zorza Szatkowski helped with the meal and clean-up after an Interface for Change meetup.  The fish were donated by Erika Merklin who helped coordinate locally for a 5-year Alaska EPSCoR project partnering with coastal communities on research.  Alaska EPSCoR  representatives held a community participation workshop where they shared research information about lake sediment using field data, analyses of red seaweed in the Lynn Canal, complete with an interactive memory game, and made VR equipment available for a closer look at what underwater farming looks like. And it came with a delicious dinner. Community members contributed side dishes including local foragers Mike Ogborn and Ron Maudlin who shared pickled fiddlehead salad with herring eggs, onion and garlic. The potato casserole, contributed by Tammy Hauser, was a popular side item also, reminiscent of the Cracker Barrel version of the dish. The lucky winners of swag bags that included an Olerud’s gift card were Mardell Gunn and Charles Peep.  The Interface of Change team went on to host the same presentation in Haines at the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood Hall on Thursday where CVN editor Rashah McChesney won a beanie for building the tallest tower out of tinker toys. She may, or may not, have been the only participant.  At both locations, a photography project about wild foods, climate and community done by local middle and high school students was also on display. 

Amy Kane is moving to Wrangell. Kane has lived in Haines for six years and is relocating for her job with the Alaska Marine Highway System. She is going to get health insurance! Some people know her as the face of The Book Store, before the new owners took over last year. Others know her as a quality source of focaccia bread at pop-ups and potlucks all over the Chilkat Valley. Kane relocated to Haines from Sitka, where she owned and ran the Larkspur Cafe. Kane’s focaccia bread was an important part of the restaurant even though she said she is not a bread maker. She turned out large trays of the bread for paninis and settled on the recipe after some trial and error. Kane calls it a forgiving bread and highlights the importance of a working class bread that can be whipped up quickly, while still allowing the baker to add and take away ingredients based on what is available.  Before she moves on to a new chapter in Wrangell, Kane passed along her focaccia bread recipe to Brynn Murphy, who agreed to learn the recipe in a one-on-one baking afternoon. They started with separating the fresh rosemary and thyme, and spent a Friday afternoon practicing the technique for making a really great focaccia. Murphy took detailed notes while they went through the process. She left with her practice bread and a whole new skill set. Murphy intends to share the bread with Haines for years to come

Paul Swift moved to Haines in 1970 and has been thinking about snow and weather ever since. From 2012 to 2018 he was a local volunteer observer for the National Weather Service. In 2018 retired meteorologist  Jim Green took over this responsibility. Some of those tasks include logging stats, recording minimum and maximum daily temperatures, snowfall and converting snowfall into liquid measurements. Swift’s wife Anne Boyce shared a picture of him on a porch from the winter of 2011-2012, showing the stark reality of springtime melt in the Chilkat Valley. That year, she said, nearly 360 inches of snow was recorded in Haines. Current NOAA observer Green said Haines has been a very reliable source of weather data for 100 years because of the volunteers in the Chilkat Valley.  Both Swift and Green have found it challenging to take vacations, as not many house sitters are willing and able to measure the weather while they are gone. Fun fact, if the observer misses three days of data in a month the information can not be used historically. 

Ketch Jacobson took some Haines locals out to test the new engine in the Fjordland Express and look for some wildlife along the way. What they found in Skagway was a pirate named Trevor Clark and a bundle of red rope. Clark needed some help moving his 750-pound engine across the boat yard. Trygve Bakke, Charlotte Martin, Lizzy Hahn, Baylee Pearson, Justin Letson, and Brooke Robinson were up to the task. The group made a plan to move the engine with the rope slung under it and over their shoulders while they shuffle stepped across the boat yard in their XtraTuffs. In the end, Clark got his engine moved and Jacobson tested his new engine. They spotted a few ducks, and everyone enjoyed Easter dinner in Skagway. 

The team visiting Haines from Alaska EPSCoR, led by Davin Holen, hosted a mini Alaska science Olympiad at Klukwan School. Shk’oohaalee Justina Hotch kept the children on schedule as they handed out medals to the winners for STEM-based team activities and practiced tower building with tinker toys. First-place tallest tinker-toy tower builders were Kyle Willard Wilson and Sampson Duffy-Webb. Their tower came in at 57.5 inches. Duffy-Webb has previous building experience, with  a pirate fort at home. This might have contributed to the team’s win.

If you happened to be sitting in Rusty Compass on Tuesday morning, you might have noticed a group of 10 people quickly file in from the entrance at the rear of the building. They corralled chairs, ordered coffee and snacks and seemed to be having a grand old time when Kristy Hinkle walked in the front door and gasped. Shouts of “Happy Birthday” filled the space, and then someone started to sing the song – which most in the packed cafe joined in to sing. At some point, someone handed Hinkle a helium balloon which she held as she took turns hugging her well-wishers. She turned 41 on Tuesday, and was tricked into heading to the coffee shop by her sister Krystal Lloyd, who also corralled everyone into the surprise greeting. 
Recently, Derek Poinsette was snowmachining on Chilkat Lake when he encountered a moose who was maybe curious, maybe mad, maybe feeling territorial – it’s unclear. Regardless, as he passed it, the moose began following him and continued to do so for about a half mile or so, he estimated. Poinsette stopped to get video of it as it followed him across the lake. He kept having to take off to put distance between the two of them, and eventually it lost interest and moved along. Fish and Game wildlife biologist Hannah Manninen and wildlife education and outreach coordinator Abby McAllister viewed the video with some interest outside of the Haines library after a presentation they gave on Tuesday evening. The three speculated about why the moose followed Poinsette for so long. Manninen also noted that it appeared to be a female, and both McAllister and Manninen said she looked pregnant.

The post Duly Noted: Easter eggs, boat engines and a moose stalker appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

10 years ago – April 7, 2016

Kluane bike relay registration fills up in 8 days

The window for team sign-ups for the Kluane-Chilkat bike race is now a matter of days.

Race coordinator Mike Kramer said the June 18 relay race between Haines Junction, Yukon, Haines reached its cap of 1,200 team riders within eight days of opening March 15, with some teams signing up before 5 a.m.

“It’s great that the event has become so popular, but it’s heartbreaking to get an email from somebody who’s done the race for years and find they missed the deadline,” Kramer said.

In previous years, registration filled up in three weeks.

Kramer attributed the accelerated registration to the number of riders in previous years who missed the deadline. “This year, they had their alarms and phones set.”

Solo riders can continue to register until May 13. “In theory, there are as many solos as people want to ride,” Kramer said.

24 years ago – April 11, 2002

Local effort to reprint classic text pays off

Citing a Haines woman’s efforts to encourage interest in Tlingit culture, the University of Washington Press will reprint its popular 1991 reference book, “The Tlingit Indians.”

The book, by historians George Thornton Emmons and Frederica deLaguna, is widely considered the definitive history of traditional Tlingit culture at its peak in the late 19th century.

The first edition of 5,000 sold out shortly after its release and remained highly sought after, bringing as much as $200 through online booksellers.

The book’s scarcity prompted local resident Susan Brouillette to mount a telephone and letter-writing campaign among Alaska Northwest retailers, museums, and individuals to persuade the publishers to reprint the book.

It didn’t take long to prove that a market exists for a second printing, she said. “Most of the people I talked to knew that there weren’t any more out there. I wanted to show the press that they could sell 400 or 500. After word got out about what I was doing, I had people coming up to me on the street saying ‘Include me, I’ll buy four copies,’… stuff like that.”

Bookstores provided most of the numbers needed, Brouillette said

Sitka’s Old Harbor Books owner Don Muller said the classic reference would sell at least 100 copies a year at his store. “It’s not a best seller, but as long as there are Tlingit Indians or interest in Tlingits, it’ll sell. At least here.”

Muller said the book is too good to keep out of circulation. “It’s an amazing book and it’s amazing that they let it go out of print. If we had to buy 100 to get it reprinted, we’d do it.”

The Sheldon Museum bookstore will order 20 to 30, curator Cindy Jones said.

University of Washington Press assistant marketing director Mary Anderson said high costs and perceived low demand for the 500-page book, which retails for $75, made the press reluctant to launch a second edition.

But Anderson said Brouillette convinced the company to move. “We learned that there’s a greater demand than we thought at first. I commend her. It was a wonderful effort. Sometimes publishers are like that. They need the feedback.”

Anderson said the second edition, like the first, will be printed in hardcover instead of less expensive, glossy paperback, reflecting the book’s high value.

“We will be reprinting in hardcover, mainly because the people who buy this book want to buy it forever. It’s the kind of book that’s handed down. It’s not like a paperback that’s thumbed-through and read. It’ll be passed down through generations,” Anderson said.

Anderson wouldn’t say how large the press run will be. “It’s fetching a high price. I’m hoping we can produce sufficient numbers to meet the demand.”

She said the edition is on schedule for production this summer, with release set for this fall. It will be featured in the University Press’ fall catalog, and be featured at the upcoming National Book Exposition in New York City.

Brouillette said she’s telling everyone who’s interested to buy a copy of the book at the local museum this winter. “I am so elated. I’m thrilled as can be. Now I see how you can make things happen if you want to. That’s pretty cool.”

50 years ago – April 3, 1975

Drama festivals will take place next week

From Kodiak and Fairbanks, Petersburg and Skagway, Juneau and Sitka – even from Portland and Seattle – actors will gather next week at the Chilkat Center for the Arts for the biennial Alaska State and Northwest Regional Community Theatre Festivals.

The participants will each present a maximum of 60 minutes of drama, and will be judged by an outstanding group of theatre arts leaders, chosen specially for the Alaskan and regional festivals.

The Alaska State Festival will have one matinee (Thursday), and three evening performances of two plays each Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Saturday, Oregon will perform in the afternoon, and Washington and the Alaskan winner will appear in the evening.

Tickets are available for individual performances, for the whole state festival, and for the regional one, too.

This will be the second state festival held in Haines, which has been named the permanent festival city. It will be the first time that the Northwest Regional Festival will have been held in Alaska.

The post This Week in History: Bikes, books, biennial theater festival appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Sunday, March 29
A caller in the 2000 block of Lutak Road requested a citizen assist. An officer provided an escort into town.
A caller at 100 Main Street reported a burglary alarm going off. An officer responded.

Monday, March 30
A caller reported an incident of stalking behavior. An officer responded.

A caller in Haines reported receiving a call from someone claiming there was a warrant out for his arrest. The caller was advised this was a scam phone call.

Tuesday, March 31
Officers assisted a citizen on the 200 block of Main Street.
An officer assisted another agency at Kelsall Road.
A caller reported they were testing fire alarms on the 50 block of Haines Highway.
A caller reported a driver speeding and recklessly driving on the Haines Highway. An officer was advised.

Wednesday, April 1
A caller in Haines reported a protective order violation. An officer responded.
A service call was performed in the 800 block of Oslund Drive.
A caller on Main Street reported stolen property from their vehicle. An officer was advised.
Multiple callers reported receiving a text message stating they had an unpaid traffic ticket and needed to pay immediately. Callers were advised this was a scam and a nixle alert was sent out.
A caller in the 100 block of Chestnut Drive reported a damaged stop sign and a vehicle impeding traffic. An officer and public works were advised.
An officer conducted a vehicle stop at 2 Mile Mud Bay Road and issued a verbal warning for trailer-light requirements.

Thursday, April 2
A caller on Lutak Road reported multiple vehicles speeding throughout the day. An officer was advised.
An officer conducted a vehicle stop and issued a verbal warning for tail-light requirements.
An officer conducted a vehicle stop on Allen Road and issued a verbal warning for taillight requirements and a citation for no proof of insurance.
Officers observed an unlocked business after hours on Main Street. The business owner was contacted.

Friday, April 3

A caller on Mud Bay road reported a person who came into their apartment without permission. Officers responded.

A caller reported a fire on the 100 block pf Second Avenue. Officers and the fire department responded.

A driver received a verbal warning for trailer-light requirements at 3 Mile the Haines Highway.

A driver received a verbal warning for failure to stop at a stop sign and speeding on Young Road.

Saturday, April 4

A caller reported finding a bag of medication on the 1000 block of Small Tracts Road. An officer responded.

A driver received a verbal warning for turn-signal requirements on Union Street.

A driver received a verbal warning for headlight requirements on the 300 block of Haines Highway.

There were two 911 hang-up calls, four EMS calls and eight burn permits issued.

The post Police Blotter: March 29 – April 4 appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

As the Trump administration moves to rescind regulations on so-called forever chemicals, Alaska lawmakers hope to create a separate, stricter set of state standards.

PFAS chemicals are durable, water-soluble compounds that have long been used in both consumer and industrial products for their non-stick and water-resistant properties.

Usage in firefighting foams in particular has led to widespread soil contamination around the state, including at Haines’ Tanani Point Tank Farm and fuel terminal, formerly the southern end of the Haines-Fairbanks Pipeline. Research in recent decades has linked PFAS exposure to cancer and a range of chronic illnesses. 

Bills in each chamber of the state Legislature, HB 235 and SB 219, would mandate state testing of all public water systems and require those systems to show near-zero concentrations of PFAS. Those concentration limits would replicate the Biden-era federal limits that the Trump administration has since moved to rescind.

The legislative effort is a new regulatory tack, following years of fluctuating guidance from executive-branch agencies at the state and federal level. If the state-specific standards are put into place, it would force a change to current Dunleavy administration policy of fixing PFAS policy to federal guidelines. 

The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), through spokesperson Sam Dapcevich, said last week it does not take official positions on pending legislation. 

But in recent years, Dunleavy’s administration has been accused by some of resisting a shift to safer standards. 

In testimony on the bill last month, Alaska Community Action on Toxics director Pamela Miller referred to a “failure to act” by the state regarding PFAS drinking-water regulation. 

“It’s just not acceptable to allow for these delays, because people are continuing to be exposed to dangerous levels,” Miller said in an interview last week. 

State PFAS regulations were set to tighten in 2018 under Dunleavy’s predecessor, Gov. Bill Walker. Walker’s policy proposed setting a limit for the total concentrations of five different PFAS compounds in public drinking water. 

The following year, when Dunleavy came into office, DEC cut the policy down to only consider total concentrations of two of those compounds toward the limit. One DEC contaminated sites program manager wrote at the time that the change went “against our responsibility as environmental and health professionals to ensure the drinking water of Alaskans is safe,” according to an internal memo. 

That policy stood through 2023, when then-DEC commissioner Jason Brune pledged to implement new, stronger state standards, indicating the change would happen that year. 

But new standards never came, and DEC staff now says their official policy is to follow the limits set by the federal government. 

There’s disagreement on what that means. 

Previous federal guidelines set a limit of 70 parts per trillion for the sum of two compounds. Two years ago, the Biden administration dropped allowable concentrations for a wider range of PFAS compounds to levels near zero. 

Sen. Jesse Kiehl, who represents Haines, is a cosponsor of the Senate’s version of the PFAS bill. He said this week he believes the state is currently regulating at the looser, 70 parts per trillion level. Multiple people testifying during committee discussion on the bill reiterated that idea, that the state is currently using the looser regulations.

But in an email this week, Dapcevich said DEC is following the stricter, Biden-era standards. Those standards are also listed on DEC’s website.

The near-zero Biden-era levels are aligned with what scientists and advocates have told legislators in recent months, citing research showing no safe level of PFAS exposure. Even trace amounts, they say, can have major health consequences. 

If the state continues to stick with federal guidelines, however, the stricter regulatory regime will be short-lived. Last year, the Trump administration announced an intent to rescind federal limits on four of six major PFAS compounds. It also announced an intent to extend the compliance deadline for limits on the two remaining compounds from 2029 to 2031. 

Last year, it said those changes would be finalized this spring. 

DEC staff have been reticent to speak about PFAS regulation. Dapcevich said last week the department would not make any staff available for interviews on the topic of PFAS and said it would only provide written answers to written questions. The head of the department’s drinking water program, Cindy Christian, did not respond to multiple messages requesting information about testing in Haines. 

The agency, along with the Department of Transportation, has answered questions from legislators on the senate version of the bill, including providing cost estimates. According to those estimates, the bill would add $19 million to the state budget for next year, and around $10.5 million long term. 

Some of those costs would come from increased testing. There are also provisions in the bill that would make the state liable for contamination from public facilities. That would require the state to provide clean drinking water and testing to individuals affected by state contamination, even if they had private wells. 

“When you know it’s toxic and you know it’s in Alaska’s water, it’s irresponsible not to do something about it,” Kiehl said in an interview this week. 

Even so, for Haines, it doesn’t appear the bill would have much of an immediate local impact.

According to state testing in 2024 of the Lilly Lake and Piedad water treatment plants, the borough’s public water system is currently clear of PFAS. The testing included all six compounds covered under the strictest version of the federal standards, borough records show. Borough water and sewer director Dennis Durr said last week that the borough’s water system is set to undergo another round of voluntary state PFAS testing this month. 

The public water main, however, only stretches out Lutak Road as far as the Haven Court neighborhood. At least some lots in the area next to the tank farm draw from groundwater. In at least one location outside the tank farm fence — the public beach below the site — testing has found groundwater runoff to have PFAS levels above the allowed drinking water limits. 

The state, however, is not planning to test private wells in the area regardless of whether either of the bills pass. 

For one, the site cleanup project is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army and has not included testing toward homes south of the property, said Greg Rutkowski, of Brice Engineering, the federal contractor testing the site. 

Dapcevich said the state “may become involved” with testing private wells if they’re believed to be exposed to contamination. However, “based on current data,” he wrote in an email, the state does not believe the nearby Tanani Point homes are at risk. 

Miller said last week Alaska Community Action on Toxics  would provide free testing kits to interested residents. 

Eliminating the source of the contamination at Tanani Point also looks to be far off.  Brice Engineering is currently mapping PFAS levels around the site, and Rutkowski said last week the mapping is expected to be finished and made public in July. 

Once that evaluation is complete, Brice would have to conduct yet another study, this time on the viability of different cleanup methods, before actually conducting any soil remediation. Both that study and the cleanup itself remain unfunded. 

The property has been slated by the Department of Defense to be transferred to the Chilkoot Indian Association, but only once cleanup is fully complete. In 2010, the Department of Defense estimated cleanup would be complete and the land would be transferred by 2013. Currently, there is no estimated date for full cleanup. The state legislative bills also face uncertain prospects. Both have only been heard by one committee, and even if passed would still have to make it across the Governor’s desk. Dunleavy in 2023 vetoed a bill to ban the use of PFAS-containing firefighting foams. The following year, Dunleavy allowed an altered version to pass his desk into law without a veto, but also without his signature.

The post Legislators hope to mandate tighter PFAS regulations appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.